![]() When his application for three years’ leave of absence on special duty from India to Muscat “for the purpose of removing that opprobrium to modern adventure, the huge white blot which in our maps still notes the Eastern and the Central regions of Arabia” was rejected on the grounds that “the contemplated journey was of too dangerous a nature”, Burton’s true self was stirred and he was left with little choice. He did not hesitate to fly into the face of danger to prove a point either to himself or to others. What was dangerous and impossible for others was normal and inviting for him, and what was normal for others was mundane and undeserving for him. His eccentric and determined personality always coveted to be the best and on top. According to his wife, Isabel, “during the last 48 years of his life, he lived only for the benefit and for the welfare of England and his countrymen, and the human race at large.” Burton as a MaverickĪt the same time, Burton was a person full of contrasts, a maverick. Simply put, he was matchlessly himself, Richard Francis Burton, a unique hero who was known to his countrymen by his works, not by his careers and titles. It is hard to pinpoint a vocation or a talent and show that he excelled in it more than in others. His best-known achievements include the book “Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah” and an unexpurgated translation of “One Thousand and One Nights” (Arabian Nights) as a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian anecdotes and legends.īurton was a versatile and resourceful personality. He authored over 40 books and countless articles. He was a personification of the “perfect Orientalism man” (scholar, explorer, and agent). In a way, he epitomized the new Orientalist proclivity, exuberance, scope, and competence, leaving an undeletable mark on the discipline and even on his age. He was a British explorer, Orientalist, geographer, soldier, and spy. Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) was at once a product and specimen of modern Orientalism. What binds together all those textual children “is not only their common background in Oriental legend and experience but also their learned reliance on the Orient as a kind of womb out of which they were brought forth” (Edward Said). Thus, out of the Napoleonic expedition, there issued a whole lot of Orientalists and a whole series of Orientalist “textual children”. It connoted a watershed in the cultural and civilizational relations together with exchanges between Islam and the West. Hence, although Napoleon’s campaign was a military failure, it nevertheless was a huge scientific and cultural success. But what mattered to Europe was the expanded scope and the much greater refinement given its techniques for receiving the Orient” (Edward Said). It was a time when Europe came “to know the Orient more scientifically, to live in it with greater authority and discipline than ever before. The phase was more systematic and a more scholarly enterprise. Edward Said calls this new phase “modern Orientalism”. After the end of the 18th century – chiefly owing to Napoleon Bonaparte’s brief campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798-1801) - Orientalism expanded enormously. ![]()
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